


A Lion At Heart

by DictionaryWrites



Series: The Boy Who Chose Death [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death, Ficlet, No Plot/Plotless, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:17:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Written for the weekly challenge in Gay Wizard Boys."Wait, why does this grave have your name on it?"





	A Lion At Heart

“Wait. Why does this grave have your name on it?” Harry glances up from the paper he’d been glancing over, and he feels a twinge in his side. Wincing slightly, he puts his hand on the side of his chest, over the fabric of his robes, and he feels the web of curse scars even through the soft wool blend. He’d been looking for a particular passage he’d found funny to read out loud to.

Draco Malfoy, his lips parted and his expression appalled, stares at the wall, turned away from where Harry and Narcissa sit together. He had arrived early to walk his mother back down into Hogsmeade from the castle, and up ‘til now he had been quite silent.  On the wall is a gravestone, made of a shining black marble and hung neatly on the wall in pride of place, above the fire.

In golden letters, hewn deep into the stone, it says,

**HARRY JAMES POTTER.**

**BORN 31 ST JULY 1981 – DIED 2ND MAY, 1998**

**A LION AT HEART.**

“It was a gift when I came to Hogwarts last September,” Harry says, mildly. “Nick had it commissioned for me: said he and the other ghosts were glad to accept me among their ranks. He said that if the Headless Hunt has _finally_ accepted his application, despite the technicalities, that the ghosts ought accept me.”

“That’s _mad_ ,” Draco spits out, shaking his head.

“I thought it was quite nice of him,” Harry says mildly. “Ah, here it is, Narcissa. _And frankly, to suggest that ethics are anything but a grey area is pretty insane. As a rule, we shouldn’t lie, but didn’t Narcissa Malfoy lie to Voldemort on the day of the battle itself? Right to his face? Death Eaters were killed at the Battle of Hogwarts. Murder isn’t justifiable, but this was a grey area. Everything is situational: everything. And while I won’t lay out any more arguments for the so-called Unforgivable Curses, I would say that there are situations we can never predict, and that no spell should be completely off limits.”_

Narcissa chuckles, and Harry slides the essay aside.

“What grade did you give the girl?”

“An Acceptable,” Harry says, and she frowns at him. “Narcissa, the essay itself is drivel. A little panache isn’t enough for an O.”

“You sound like Severus,” Narcissa says.

“As if you disapprove,” Harry replies, and he watches her as she gracefully stands up from her chair. Draco is still staring up at the stone on the wall, fascinated with it on some level, it seems.

“Draco?”

“Give me a moment, Mother,” he says, and Narcissa inclines her head, stepping out of Harry’s office and into the hall. The door clicks shut behind her.

“What is it, Draco?”

“Oh, stop it, _Potter_. You don’t think I’m so stupid as to believe we’re friends now?”

“Why not?” Harry asks. “I am.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” Draco Malfoy says softly. “I merely meant… It seemed very grim. As if you wish you truly had died.”

“I did die,” Harry replies. “I chose death, and I got it.” Draco seems to watch Harry for a few long moments, his brow furrowing slightly.

“But you…” He hesitates, trails off. Something changes in the room, and Harry feels like tension is building rather than ebbing between them, even though it has been two years since the war, even though Harry has refused to say a nasty word to Draco since, even though Harry has built a friendship with Draco’s mother, even though…

A lot of things.

Draco steps towards the stone on the wall, reaches out, and _touches_ it. Harry watches, holding his breath, as Draco’s fingers brush the black marble, so intimately, as if touching something he sees in a museum, as if it might shatter beneath his fingers.

“You look as if you’re thinking something,” Harry says.

“You weren’t the only one to die that day,” Draco says. “That’s all.”

“Dozens of people died,” Harry says. The other man adjusts himself in his robes, modelled after the quiet, graceful tailoring of his mother’s, with subtle embroidery around the hems, and lacking the accessories of his father’s; there are no brooches or shining pins, no affectations. Just good tailoring.

“That’s not what I meant,” Draco says, and he leaves the room.

Harry looks to the essay on the desk. He hadn’t recognized the name when it had come to him: he doesn’t recognize any of the names of his students, any of them. It’s still early days, as of yet.

He looks up at the gravestone on the wall, and he feels the ghost of a smile cross over his lips.

Still early days.


End file.
